15.03 Cape Reinga: What a Wonderful World

3.A Distance and Direction Boards at Cape Reinga Lighthouse
(Showing Distances in Nautical Miles and Kilometers)

There are three kinds of points in travel, minimally conceived: origin and destination points, mere points in between, and swing or portal points (in which one's travel takes a change of direction). The direction and distance boards appearing above mostly point to origin and destination points: Sydney, London, the South Pole, etc. On the other hand, for example, the Tropic of Capricorn, circumscribing the globe at approximately 23° 26′ South is a mere point (albeit a mere point with a name) for most travelers, the point where one's line of travel intersects the line of the southern tropic. The distance and direction boards gathered above attain their significance because they are placed at a swing point in maritime transits, namely at Cape Reinga at the northern tip of New Zealand.

Jean, our younger daughter (Emily), and I traveled to Cape Reinga during our recent sojourn in New Zealand's Northland. We anchored our Northland visit in Paihia, as I've previously reported. To reach Cape Reinga we elected to take a tour bus. Such tour buses pick up and drop off tourists at lodgings in Paihia and Kerikeri. Our Fullers GreatSights tour bus fetched us about 7:15 on a bright, sunny morning.  After gathering additional tourists at other lodgings, our bus driver headed us to Puketi Forest. 

That forest happens to have some rather large and old kauri trees, though not the largest in New Zealand. The kauri is the tall, broad self-delimbing tree from which the Māori could carve a waka, or war canoe (among other things). When humans first appeared in New Zealand, kauri forests covered the North Island as far south as Kawhia, southwest of Hamilton on the island's west coast (Jean and I visited Kawhia in May 2013 and I can attest that there are now no kauri anywhere near Kawhia). Our visit to the Puketi Forest was cool, the forest's lower layers not yet warmed by the rising sun. The walkways we used had been constructed for a visit by Queen Elizabeth II. They made our exploration quite easy. But there would be no time for lingering. Because of the day's schedule, the visit was kept brief.

3.B In the Puketi Kauri Forest

3.C Puketi Forest Greenery

3.D More Greenery

3.E Gazing at a Kauri Tree Trunk

Following the forest visit, our charismatic bus driver and tour guide, Chris, drove us to an early (11 AM) brunch at Houhora, where everyone was served either fish and chips or a vegetarian offering. The brunch was earlier than I would have wanted, but brunch time is partly dictated by the tides on the Tasman Sea, on New Zealand's west coast. You see, one of the features of virtually all Cape Reinga tours is a run along Ninety Mile Beach (along the Tasman). The buses run north or south along the beach when the tide is low. Chris had us running north on a receding tide, which is probably the best possible situation for the buses and 4-wheel-drive vehicles allowed to run on the beach.

3.F Front of Bus No. 78

Chris kept the bus running along at speed (90 kph is the limit for buses), except when he had to cross a stream or when we got in the vicinity of, say, surf-casting fishers or hikers. For the most part the Ninety Mile Beach is devoid of people. The surf is way too powerful for safe swimming or surfing, though that doesn't prevent the occasional try. The famous Captain James Cook (See Blogpost 13.11) referred to Ninety Mile Beach, with its great sand dunes at the north end, as a 'desert'.

The few hikers encountered on Ninety Mile Beach understandably favoured dampened sand. Within the past few years a trail or track has been completed from one end of New Zealand to the other, from Cape Reinga in the north to Bluff, at the southernmost point of the South Island. State Route 1, connecting Cape Reinga with Bluff, is 2046.7 kilometers (1272 miles) in length.  The trail, called Te Aroroa Trail, is 3000 kilometers (1864 miles) in length. A trek over the trail for the ordinary hiker reportedly takes at least five months. I was more than happy to be speeding in a bus over the Ninety Mile Beach portion of the trail.

3.G First Stop on Ninety Mile Beach

3.H Incoming Rollers at Ninety Mile Beach

3.I Beach with Tiriparepa Point in the Distance

At the northern end of Ninety Mile Beach the bed of Te Paki Stream provides a 'highway' connecting the beach with the New Zealand road system. As Chris, our driver, would say, the one thing about Te Paki Stream and any other stream: A driver absolutely mustn't stop. Stopping in a stream can lead to a vehicle's 'sinking', where the vehicle become stuck in wet sand. He related a number of sinkings, including an incident involving a string of buses whose rescue required powerful tow trucks. 

Chris brought us to a safe streambed stretch at the foot of a large dune, where he parked the bus. Others did likewise. Here Chris opened the luggage compartments, which contained numerous, variously sized surfboards. Anyone who wanted to bodysurf down the nearby dune could do so, following instruction from Chris, a physical trainer in a previous career. Most people on board tried surfing at least once. A number were able to surf a second or third time. The consumer of time and energy was the long plod up to the dune's midpoint or (for the fit and daring) the dune's highpoint.

3.J Fullers GreatSights Buses Parked on Te Paki Streambed

3.K Heading Up a Sand Dune

3.L The Slog Up & Waiting to Come Down

3.M In the Arrivals Area

3.N Te Wehari Beach &  Cape Maria van Diemen (Former Islets 
Now 'Attached' to the North Island by Sand)

Following the dune visit, Chris headed the bus to Cape Reinga (less than 30 minutes away). A lighthouse was established at this point in May 1941, there having previously been a light at a nearby offshore point. The lighthouse had a 1000-watt light and a keeper until 1987. At some point, probably when solar panels were installed, a 50-watt light supplanted the older light. The 50-watter (presumably with enhanced lighting technology) continues to be seen at sea as far as 19 nautical miles (35 km) away. 

3.O Cape Reinga Lighthouse

3.P Solar Panels on the Cape Reinga Lighthouse

3.Q Pondering Distances at Cape Reinga

Long before there was a lighthouse at Cape Reinga and even if the lighthouse should disappear, Cape Reinga has had and will have cultural significance in New Zealand or Aotearoa, to use New Zealand's official name in Te Reo Māori (the Māori tongue). This cape marks the point in Māori cosmology where the souls of the departed are believed to leap into the underworld, from which they eventually ascend. 'Reinga', a noun, means leap, place of leaping, or departing place of spirits in Te Reo Māori. I'd hesitate to say more about the spiritual significance of this place for Māori people, be they Christian or non-Christian, because there is so much more I would need to know to confidently talk about that significance. Suffice it to say here that northward-pointing Cape Reinga is more than a point. It holds a place in Māori culture, not least because the ancestral home of the Māori, Hawaiki, was and is northwards of Aotearoa.

3.R Beach & Rocks Below Lighthouse

3.S New Zealand Flax at Cape Reinga

3.T Cape Maria van Diemen (Again) as Seen from Cape Reinga

3.U Meeting Point Placards (in English & Te Reo Māori)

3.V Meeting of the Waters of the Tasman Sea (Leftward) & the Pacific Ocean (Rightward)

We live on an ocean planet, 71 percent covered by the waters of the sea (61 percent in the Northern Hemisphere; 81 percent in the Southern Hemisphere). In one sense there is simply the Ocean Sea. But the Ocean Sea is divvied up into humanly contrived parts, the parts being given names. The conventions of naming the ocean's parts are necessarily arbitrary and don't conform with one another from one place in the world to the next even after accounting for translation issues. As an American I'd always thought of New Zealand as entirely 'afloat' in the Pacific Ocean. But for Kiwis that part of the Pacific basin west of their islands and southeast of Australia is known, as I've said, as the Tasman Sea. 

The human contrivance of naming doesn't mean that anything out there on the face of the waters can show where, say, one sea ends and another begins. Nevertheless, Cape Reinga is a place where the contrived marine boundaries are, as it were, substantiated in nature, at least for a small stretch. We shouldn't be surprised if there are sometimes natural effects evident on or in the waters at a maritime swing or portal point like Cape Reinga. At the cape one can see churning waters just offshore. The churning is apparently caused by tidal differences and clashing coastwise currents where Pacific and Tasman waters 'meet'. Whatever the natural cause of the churning waters, the churning has given rise to a rich Māori mythopoesis (beyond what I've related here). No wonder. Cape Reinga's water tempest is part of the mystery and beauty of this wind-swept place, thanks be to God.

What a wonderful world we've been given. Chris sang about it (a la Louis Armstrong) on the way back from the cape. Long live the singing and the song. Long live Cape Reinga.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

PS. Here's a brief YouTube visual of the meeting of Pacific and Tasman waters, thanks to the gentleman who posted it.